145 Bad Relationships Quotes That Help You Decide Right

145 Inspiring Bad-Relationship Quotes About Moving On

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Sometimes we might fall for someone wrong. But learning from our mistakes is what life is all about. So instead of sticking to an unhealthy relationship, you can go through some inspiring bad relationship quotes to help you make the right decision.

If you happen to be or were in such a relationship, we have compiled a list of quotes about bad relationships to help you move on from an unworthy life. These will motivate you to choose happiness and freedom for a better tomorrow.

In This Article

145 Bad Relationship Quotes

Read on the best meaningful quotes on bad relationships and move on.

  1.  “It is far better to be alone, than to be in bad company.” – George Washington
  1. “Letting go doesn’t mean that you don’t care about someone anymore. It’s just realizing that the only person you have control over is yourself.” – Deborah Reber
  1. “Sooner or later we’ve all got to let go of our past.” – Dan Brown
  1. “The quality of your life is the quality of your relationships.” – Anthony Robbins
  1. “No partner in a love relationship… should feel that he has to give up an essential part of himself to make it viable.” – May Sarton
  1. “Letting go means to come to the realization that some people are a part of your history, but not a part of your destiny.” – Steve Maraboli
  1. “Maybe the most that you can expect from a relationship that goes bad is to come out of it with a few good songs.” – Marianne Faithfull
  1. “If you’re giving your all and it’s not enough, you’re probably giving it to the wrong person.” – Unknown
  1. “You must make a decision that you are going to move on. It won’t happen automatically. You will have to rise up and say, ‘I don’t care how hard this is, I don’t care how disappointed I am, I’m not going to let this get the best of me. I’m moving on with my life.” – Joel Osteen
  1. “Life becomes easier when you learn to accept an apology you never got.” – Robert Brault
  1. “Relationships end, but they don’t end your life.” – Steve Martin
  1. “When you get into a bad relationship, the best thing you can do is get out of it as soon you can.” – Unknown
  1. “Even though you may want to move forward in your life, you may have one foot on the brakes. In order to be free, we must learn how to let go. Release the hurt. Release the fear. Refuse to entertain your old pain. The energy it takes to hang onto the past is holding you back from a new life. What is it you would let go of today?” – Mary Manin Morrissey
  1. “You will evolve past certain people. Let yourself.” – Mandy Hale
  1. “Nothing in the universe can stop you from letting go and starting over.” – Guy Finley
  1. “I think it is a bad relationship when you get blamed for the things that make you who you are.” – Unknown
  1. “Grudges are for those who insist that they are owed something; forgiveness, however, is for those who are substantial enough to move on.” – Criss Jami
  1. “If you are struggling in a relationship to keep yourself happy, you are in a wrong place.” – Unknown
  1. “I had to cease to mourn what could never be and make the most of what was possible. And I would begin doing that by trying to mend the hurts of the past.” – Cameron Dokey
  1. “Whenever you’re in conflict with someone, there is one factor that can make the difference between damaging your relationship and deepening it. That factor is attitude.” – William James
  1. “Sometimes we just fall in love with the wrong people.” – Unknown
  1. “You fell in love with my flowers but not my roots, so when Autumn arrived, you didn’t know what to do.” – Soft Grung
  1. “For lack of an occasional expression of love, a relationship strong at the seams can wear thin in the middle.” – Robert Brault
  1. “I mean, if the relationship can’t survive the long term, why on earth would it be worth my time and energy for the short term?” – Nicholas Sparks
  1. “I am a strong believer that a bad relationship must be brought to an end, no matter how.” – Unknown
  1. “It happens to everyone as they grow up. You find out who you are and what you want, and then you realize that people you’ve known forever don’t see things the way you do. So you keep the wonderful memories, but find yourself moving on.” – Nicholas Sparks
  1. “When you get out of it, you realize how toxic it actually was.” – Steve Maraboli
  1. “You don’t have to let that one thing be the thing that defines you.” – Jojo Moyes
  1. “Even seasonal situations can bring with them lessons that last a lifetime. If the love doesn’t last, it prepares you for the one that will.” – Mandy Hale
  1. “A relationship without trust is like a car without gas, you can stay in it all you want, but it won’t go anywhere.” – Unknown
  1. “Sometimes it takes heartbreak to shake us awake and help us see we are worth so much more than we’re settling for.” – Mandy Hale
  1. “Cry. Forgive. Learn. Move on. Let your tears water the seeds of your future happiness.” – Steve Maraboli
  1. “Relationships end, but they don’t end your life. But people do often spend more time finding out about failed relationships than finding successful ones.” – Unknown
  1. “Lots of things can be fixed. Things can be fixed. But many times, relationships between people cannot be fixed, because they should not be fixed. You’re aboard a ship setting sail, and the other person has joined the inland circus, or is boarding a different ship, and you just can’t be with each other anymore. Because you shouldn’t be.” – C. JoyBell C.
  1. “It’s better to be healthy alone than sick with someone else” – Phil McGraw
  1. “A bad relationship can do that, can make you doubt everything good you ever felt about yourself.” – Dionne Warwick
  1. “That’s all you can do in this world, no matter how strong the current beats against you, or how heavy your burden, or how tragic your love story. You keep going.” – Robyn Schneider
  1. “As I was fighting for you, I realized I was fighting to be lied to, fighting to be taken for granted, fighting to be disappointed, fighting to be hurt again..So I started fighting to let go.” – Unknown
  1. “Sometimes trying to fix them, breaks you.” – Steve Maraboli
  1. “Professionalism makes work relationships healthy, foolishness and dishonesty erodes them.” – Ty Howard
  1. “There is no reason to believe that a bad relationship can be fixed. Sometimes you have to let go.” – Unknown
  1. “The most painful thing is losing yourself in the process of loving someone too much, and forgetting that you are special too.” – Ernest Hemingway
  1. “There are only two kinds of people who can drain your energy: those you love, and those you fear. In both instances it is you who let them in. They did not force their way into your aura, or pry their way into your reality experience.” – Anthon St. Maarten
  1. “It was strange, really. A couple months ago, I had thought I couldn’t live without him. Apparently I could.” – Gabrielle Zevin
  1. “God said, you don’t have to worry about love. As long as I am existing, you will be loved.” – Unknown
  1. “The most difficult aspect of moving on is accepting that the other person already did.” – Faraaz Kazi
  1. “What’s broken is broken, and I’d rather remember it as it was than mend it and see the broken places as long as I lived.” – Margaret Mitchell
  1. “Make it a rule of life never to regret and never to look back. Regret is an appalling waste of energy; you can’t build on it; it’s only good for wallowing in.” – Katherine Mansfield
  1. “If you spend your time hoping someone will suffer the consequences for what they did to your heart, then you’re allowing them to hurt you a second time in your mind.” – Shannon L. Alder
  1. “It is important that we forgive ourselves for making mistakes. We need to learn from our errors and move on.” – Steve Maraboli
  1. “And ever has it been known that love knows not its own depth until the hour of separation.” – Khalil Gibran
  1. “One’s dignity may be assaulted, vandalized and cruelly mocked, but it can never be taken away unless it is surrendered.” – Michael J. Fox
  1. “We are born in relationship, we are wounded in relationship, and we can be healed in relationship.” – Harville Hendrix
  1. “Don’t go back to something God has already rescued you from.” – Unknown
  1. “Sometimes you don’t get closure, you just move on.” – Karen Salmansohn
  1. “Don’t hold on because you think there will be no one else. There will always be someone else. You’ve got to believe you are worth more than being repeatedly hurt by someone who doesn’t really care and believe that someone will see what you are really worth and treat you the way you should be treated.” – Unknown
  1. “Sometimes we must undergo hardships, breakups, and narcissistic wounds, which shatter the flattering image that we had of ourselves, in order to discover two truths: that we are not who we thought we were; and that the loss of a cherished pleasure is not necessarily the loss of true happiness and well-being.” – Jean-Yves Leloup
  1. “Relationships are supposed to make you feel good. Relationships are not supposed to make you feel bad.” – Laura Bowers
  1. “I think a relationship is like a shark. It has to constantly move forward or it dies.” – Woody Allen
  1. “I felt an inner peace and softness. My Berlin Wall had been cracked; the toxic relationship between me and that critical voice had been severed.” – Penny De Villiers
  1. “If someone keeps bringing you down, perhaps it’s time to get up and leave.” – Karen Salmansohn
  1. “A bad relationship can give you a lot of learnings.” – Unknown
  1. “There are people who break you down by just being them. They need not do anything. Dissociate.” – Malebo Sephodi
  1. “We are responsible for our own relationships, their success, their failures, the good times, the bad times. Take responsibility for creating the relationships that you desire.” – Sam Owen
  1. “If you were in a bad relationship and you meet someone new, you’re going to leave with your luggage. The next person is going to have to endure things that someone else causes.” – Curtis Jackson
  1. “Everybody has bad relationships and, at the end of the day, they are just a great way to set yourself up for a good relationship.” – Anne Hathaway
  1. “Love sometimes hurts when you’re not with the right person But, don’t give up loving.” – Unknown
  1. “Don’t force together, pieces that don’t fit.” – Unknown
  1. “In a relationship, when does the art of compromise become compromising?” – Sarah Jessica Parker
  1. “Relationships based on obligation lack dignity.” – Wayne Dyer
  1. “Toxic relationships are like a good pasta that has been overcooked.” – Asa Don Brown
  1. “Until you let go of all the toxic people in your life, you will never be able to grow into your fullest potential. Let them go so you can grow.” – DLQ
  1. “Poisonous relationships can alter our perception. You can spend many years thinking you’re worthless. But you’re not worthless. You’re underappreciated.” – Steve Maraboli
  1. “And perhaps there is a limit to the grieving that the human heart can do. As when one adds salt to a tumbler of water, there comes a point where simply no more will be absorbed.” – Sarah Waters
  1. “Some people ask God for a “sign” and ignore God unless His answer is “yes.” Please trust God whether or not you get what you are praying for.” – Unknown
  1. “To be bitter is to attribute intent and personality to the formless, infinite, unchanging and unchangeable void. We drift on a chartless, resistless sea. Let us sing when we can, and forget the rest…” – H.P. Lovecraft
  1. “Learn to walk away from those who cause harm to you.” – Malika E Nura
  1. “Love cannot live where there is no trust.” – Edith Hamilton
  1. “Bad relationships are like a bad investment. No matter how much you put into it you’ll never get anything out of it. Find someone that’s worth investing in.” – Unknown
  1. “When someone you love says goodbye you can stare long and hard at the door they closed and forget to see all the doors God has open in front of you.” – Shannon L. Alder
  1. “When there is no trust at all between the two of you, then you do have a bad relationship then.” – Unknown
  1. “The wrong person will give you less than what you’re worth but that doesn’t mean that you have to accept it.” – Sonya Parker
  1. “A wrong relationship will make you feel more alone than when you were single” – Unknown
  1. “Do you cry at the end of every day and hope for happiness to come tomorrow. Well, accept you are in a wrong relationship.” – Unknown
  1. “Problems in relationships occur because each person is concentrating on what is missing in the other person.” – Wayne Dyer
  1. “You create more space in your life when you turn your excess baggage to garbage.”- Chinonye J. Chidolue
  1. “Toxic people attach themselves like cinder blocks tied to your ankles, and then invite you for a swim in their poisoned waters.” – John Mark Green
  1. “Sometimes the hardest part isn’t letting go but rather learning to start over.” – Nicole Sobon
  1. “The hardest part of being in an emotionally abusive relationship, it’s actually admitting you’re in one.” – Anna Akana
  1. “Love is never lost. If not reciprocated, it will flow back and soften and purify the heart.” – Washington Irving
  1. “It is better for someone to break your heart once by leaving your life, than for them to stay in your life and break your heart continually.” – Terry Mark
  1. “How can I let you be a priority in my life, when I’m still an option in your life?” – Hussein Nishah
  1. “We all have toxic people around us that make our lives miserable… The day we take them out of our lives, we will all become better people; including them…” – Rodolfo Peon
  1. “Just say no to complicated, dead-end, unhealthy, and toxic relationships.” – Stephanie Lahart
  1. “The death of one relationship always starts with small arguments and then suspicions.” – Unknown
  1. “Don’t settle for a relationship that won’t let you be yourself.” – Oprah Winfrey
  1. “Sometimes two people need to step apart and make a space between that each might see the other anew, in a glance across a room or silhouetted against the moon.” – Robert Brault
  1. “Don’t be reckless with other people’s hearts, and don’t put up with people that are reckless with yours.” – Kurt Vonnegut
  1. “Your relationship should be a safe haven, not a battlefield. The world is hard enough already.” – Unknown
  1. “Losing will not always amount to a loss, sometimes you have to lose those toxic relationships and bad habits to create a space for better things.” – Gift Gugu Mona
  1. “You learn more about someone at the end of a relationship than at the beginning.” – Unknown
  1. “Get away from a bad relationip. The sooner, the better!” – Unknown
  1. “Forgiveness is a personal process that doesn’t depend on us having direct contact with the people who have hurt us.” – Sharon Salzberg
  1. “I have to remember it is not love that has hurt me; but someone who could not love me in the right way.” – R. YS Perez
  1. “When you let g,o you create space for something better.” – Unknown
  1. “Manage your relationships. Great relationships may not be profitable, but bad ones always result in losses.” – Tarun Sharma
  1. “It is really exhausting to live in a dictatorship of ‘Me’, which is basically a tyranny of others.” – Stefan Molyneux
  1. “The one who loves the least, controls the relationship.” – Robert Anthony
  1. “The creative process is lost in a toxic environment. The risk of staying is too great because in it you may never reach your full destiny.” – Germany Kent
  1. “Don’t settle for anybody, just so you can have somebody.” – Unknown
  1. “Sometimes it’s better to end something & try to start something new than imprison yourself in hoping for the impossible.” – Karen Salmansohn
  1. “Don’t be reckless with other people’s hearts, and don’t put up with people that are reckless with yours.” – Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.
  1. “Sometimes dramatic people try to draw you into someone else’s drama, and that never ends well. Interfering is like pulling on a dangerous dog’s ears. Do it at your own peril.” – Mary E. DeMuth
  1. “When people treat you like they don’t care, believe them.” – Unknown
  1. “When being in a toxic relationship in life at times you may have to step outside yourself, to see yourself, so you can find yourself and love yourself again.” – Angel Moreira
  1. “Sometimes it takes a heartbreak to shake us awake & help us see we are worth so much more than we’re settling for.” – Mandy Hale
  1. “It is better for someone to break your heart once by leaving your life than for them to stay in your life and break your heart continually.” – Unknown
  1. “Losing excess fats through exercise is important, but losing useless friends is urgent. Treat urgent things first!” – Israelmore Ayivor
  1. “You made me hate the person I was becoming—only because you wanted me to—and for that, you will never be forgiven.” – Ahmed Mostafa
  1. “A heartbreak is a blessing from God. It’s just his way of letting you realize he saved you from the wrong one.” – Unknown
  1. “A ‘situationship’ is not a relationship. Excuses about limitations and obstacles are just a lack of courage and commitment. Those who truly want to be together, find a way to make it happen.” – Anthon St. Maarten
  1. “Spend your time with those who love you unconditionally, not with those who only love you under certain conditions.” – Suzy Kassem
  1. “A bad relationship is like standing on broken glass, if you stay you will keep hurting…If you walk away, you will hurt but eventually you will heal.” – Autumn Kohler
  1. “The wrong person isn’t breaking their back to make you happy. So, stop breaking your back for them.” – Sonya Parker
  1. “Any relationship primarily built on physical attractiveness is predestined to be short lived.” – Zig Ziglar
  1. “Almost all of our relationships begin and most of them continue as forms of mutual exploitation, a mental or physical barter, to be terminated when one or both parties run out of goods.” – Wiston Auden

Bad Relationship Quotes For Him

Why compromise when you can have the best in life. Let go of the past, which is weighing you down.

  1. “Afterward, she would finally come to understand what it meant to be human, what it felt like when the wrong man loves a woman, how the touch of a hand on her back–placed at the exact spot where the shoulder blades end and before the spine begins–can feel like the way that wings beat in the darkest part of the night.” – Shilo Niziolek
  1. “If you think that she is reckless with your heart, you should definitely leave her, I tell you now.” – Unknown
  1. “Her pretty picture lying on the ground was like the toppling of some fascist regime. And burning the photograph was the celebration.” – Phil Volatile
  1. “Whoever said money can’t buy happiness, clearly never paid for a divorce.” – Unknown
  1. “I wish I knew how to quit you!” – Jack Twist
  1. “Boy, if you think she is cheating on you, then you do not trust her enough, start thinking again.” – Unknown
  1. “It is when your spouse is concentrating on things you are missing that hurts you the most.” – Unknown
  1. “You can keep your love, I will keep my respect”- Amit Kalantri
  1. “My girlfriend said she wanted me to be more like her ex; so I dumped her.” – Unknown

Bad Relationship Quotes For Her

Be strong, gather your emotional strength, and look up for a better tomorrow. Realize your worth and move on in life.

  1. “Girls you’ve got to know, when it’s time to turn the pages.” – Tori Amos
  1. “Every woman that finally figured out her worth, has picked up her suitcases of pride and boarded a flight to freedom, which landed in the valley of change.” – Shannon L. Alder
  1. “A bad relationship is a poison to the body, it will slowly kill you right from the inside out, girl.” – Unknown
  1. “Sometimes a girl keeps going back to a guy who treats her bad, because she’s not ready to give up hope that maybe someday he’ll change.” – Unknown
  1. “The man God created for you will treat you right. If the man you’re holding onto is treating you wrong, he isn’t in God’s plan for you.” – Unknown
  1. “How can a woman be expected to be happy with a man who insists on treating her as if she were a perfectly normal human being.” – Oscar Wilde
  1. “Ladies, hear this, if a man isn’t following God, he isn’t fit to lead…If he doesn’t have a relationship with God, he won’t know how to have a relationship with you..If he doesn’t know God, he doesn’t know real love.” – Unknown
  1. “Failed relationships can be described as so much wasted makeup.” – Marian Keyes
  1. “It’s a guide to help women get out of bad relationships. It’s called, ‘You’re a Great Guy, BUT…” – Betsy Thomas
  1. “When you do not have trust between the two of you, what you have will never get to last, girl.” – Unknown

Frequently Asked Questions

1. What are examples of a bad relationship?

An unhealthy relationship is often described as a dysfunctional relationship. Some more examples of a bad relationship are controlling, difficult, or toxic bonds.

2. What are the signs of a bad relationship?

The primary sign of a bad relationship is unhappiness. In addition, other signs in your partner such as not being willing to communicate, displaying aggressive behaviors, being disrespectful or dishonest, not being understanding, empathetic or supportive might indicate that you are in an unhealthy relationship.

We sometimes fall into bad relationships knowingly or unknowingly that leave us teaching a lesson. Learning from such experiences guides us better for the new connections we make. Getting over a bad relationship is challenging, but you can get over the phase with time. Reading some quotes that have captured the essence of a dysfunctional relationship will iterate why it is better to remain alone than in an undeserving bond. A few of these quotes also offer a few suggestions to get over a bad relationship, look at the bright side of the picture, and find your closure.

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Shivank Joshi
Shivank JoshiBA (Mass Communication)
Shivank is an experienced professional with a passion for writing, editing, and research. With a bachelor’s degree in Mass Communication from IEL, Dehradun, he previously worked as a production editor. Shivank transitioned into a writer/editor, contributing to various publications as a freelancer.

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